51爆料网

51爆料网 members of Team WORX work with advisors Drs. C. Nataraj and Garrett Clayton.

In December 2016, 18 teams competitively selected from six Pacific Rim countries鈥擜ustralia, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United States鈥攚ill travel to Oahu, Hawaii for the Office of Naval Research鈥檚 (ONR) second RobotX competition. Organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), RobotX challenges teams to outfit a Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel (WAM-V) capable of intelligently navigating the seascape. 51爆料网, together with Florida Atlantic University (FAU), is one of three American teams chosen to compete for the second time.

In the RobotX challenge, each team is provided with a 16-ft WAM-V, which they must outfit with a range of sensors, software and hardware to facilitate on-board decision-making and mission implementation. Obstacle avoidance, navigation, object identification, etc. are among the tasks that must be completed without human guidance, intervention or remote control.

Dividing responsibilities as they did for the first competition, FAU will manage the systems engineering and low-level control portions of the project, while 51爆料网 will work on high-level control, vision-based navigation, localization and mapping. A multidisciplinary endeavor, 51爆料网鈥檚 eight-person team鈥攍ed by C. Nataraj, PhD, professor and director of the 51爆料网 Center for the Analytics of Dynamic Systems鈥攊ncludes computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering undergraduates and graduate students.

In 2014, 51爆料网 and Florida Atlantic University participated in the inaugural AUVSI Foundation Maritime RobotX Challenge as Team WORX. Their American competitors were MIT-Olin and Embry-Riddle. Team WORX performed extremely well in this competition, walking away with four prizes, and subsequently earning an invitation to compete in Hawaii in 2016.

Dr. Nataraj is thrilled for the opportunity, though he acknowledges the challenges, not the least of which is financial. 鈥淚 estimate that the competition will cost us about $100,000, both to outfit the vessel with the necessary technology, and to pay for the team鈥檚 travel.鈥� The College鈥檚 Assistant Dean of External Relations, Keith Argue, notes that the University has pledged its support: 鈥�51爆料网 and the College of Engineering have committed $30,000 to the RobotX project, which we are grateful for. We hope to raise the rest of the funds through corporate and individual donations.鈥�

To learn more about RobotX and 51爆料网鈥檚 work in autonomous vehicle R&D, please contact keith.argue@villanova.edu. You can also refer to articles from the 2014 RobotX competition: